


Love You to Death

by shinnyluvssuju



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Angst, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Suicide Attempt, this is a BIG SAD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:01:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29185218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinnyluvssuju/pseuds/shinnyluvssuju
Summary: Link would really hate him then, and Link hating him instead of loving him would make his life a whole lot easier. No it wouldn't. Of course it wouldn't. Rhett realized a long time ago that he's damned with Link and damned without him, so he might as well have him. Maybe that was a mistake.
Relationships: Jessie McLaughlin/Rhett McLaughlin, Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	Love You to Death

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah this is pretty heavy. If discussions of homophobia and suicide disturb you, please refrain from reading. If you do choose to read, I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Find me on tumblr @riverfetus, twitter @coldwhipp, and insta @santamonicayachtclub. XO Sam

Rhett can't sleep. Sleep feels like a distant memory these days. How long has it been since he's slept through the night? A week? Two? He's lost count, because what's the point.   
  
He's thankful that Jessie is a heavy sleeper. He'd hate to feel like even more of a useless burden by keeping her awake with his insomnia. He slips out of bed, grabs something from his jacket hanging on the back of the door, and wanders downstairs as quietly as he can before slipping out the back door.   
  
Sitting on the patio and staring up at the starless sky Rhett lights a cigarette. He doesn't usually smoke, okay? Only when he's hammered, or really really stressed. He wishes he was drunk instead as he takes a long drag. Jessie isn't gonna like that he'll smell like smoke in the morning. Link will absolutely hate it.   
  
Link despises cigarettes, and it makes Rhett want to keep smoking and smoking until both his lungs burn out. Link would really hate him then, and Link hating him instead of loving him would make his life a whole lot easier. No it wouldn't. Of course it wouldn't. Rhett realized a long time ago that he's damned with Link and damned without him, so he might as well have him. Maybe that was a mistake.   
  
Mistakes are all Rhett can think about. It makes him feel like such an ungrateful bastard, because he's sitting on a beautiful patio behind a million dollar home in Los fucking Angeles, he should have no complaints. But he just can't help it. He'd trade all his money and earthly possessions for just one more chance to go back in time and make things right. All the money in the world can't buy him a time machine, not yet at least. And the reason he has this money in the first place is because of what Link had helped him build. It all comes full circle. It always comes back to Link.   
  
Link, Link, Link. It probably isn't healthy. It definitely isn't healthy. Rhett has never done hard drugs in his life but he imagines this is what it must feel like trying to get clean; _it's bad for me, I don't want it, but I need it to feel sane._ The thing is though, Link has never been bad for him, not really. He's been nothing but perfect, always. Perfect is a dramatization of course. Link is far from the true definition of perfection. Link is picky, controlling, a workaholic, anxious, prone to depressive episodes, is a walking awkward situation, repressed, and a thousand other things. Through all of it though he's never made Rhett unhappy. He's never driven Rhett away, no matter how hard Rhett has pushed him. There's no one else Rhett would choose to be this happy with. There's also no one else that could make him this sad.   
  
"It doesn't have to be now. It doesn't even have to be soon. Just... _someday_."   
  
"You know I can't, Rhett. If I do that I'm no better than my dad. And I never want to be like him. I _never_ want to do to my kids what he did to me. I can't force them to grow up in a broken home, too."   
  
"What about when the kids are all grown? When they don't need us as much anymore. Our jobs will be finished and then we can focus on us."   
  
"Aren't you worried what your dad is going to think of you? What Cole will think? Everyone else in your family?"   
  
"I'm tired of worrying about shit I can't control, Link. I'm _tired_. Aren't you tired?"   
  
"Dead tired..."   
  
Rhett replays that conversation in his mind over and over again. Link never did give him a straight answer. Just kept bouncing around the question like he usually does when the topic comes up. It's that tiny bit of hope that really does Rhett in. _Link might change his mind, so I have to keep trying._ Rhett doesn't know how much longer he can go on like this.   
  
During an argument once Link let it slip that he told his mother that he has feelings for Rhett. It was a long time ago, Link thinks it was senior year of high school. Link was crying and Mamma Sue couldn't console him and he confessed right then and there. Link's mother has known for a long time now. She's never said a thing. Not to Link, not to Rhett, and thankfully to neither of their wives. Rhett is amazed by this. He wonders what his own mother would have done if Rhett were in that situation. He imagines it wouldn't go as well.   
  
He's never been good enough. He's never been as good as his older brother, happily married with a couple kids, pastor, white picket fence, normal fucking life. It's not like Rhett never tried to measure up, of course he did. That's why he just stood there and took it every time his dad yelled at him that he needed to focus on basketball. That's why he got more involved with the church, teaching weekly classes to twelve year olds about Jesus. That's why he folded when his dad told him that going to school for engineering would be more respectable than film school even though film school was his dream since junior high. That's why he proposed to Jessie Lane when she was only nineteen years old, because he couldn't stand his parents pressure and his family's whispers wondering why he isn't married and why he spends every waking moment with that Link Neal boy. They never said it out loud but he could hear the accusations in their thoughts. _They must know. They must know how wrong and disgusting and dirty I am because I have dreams about making love to my male best friend and no one else._ He had to quiet their accusations. He couldn't take it anymore. Now though, he's starting to think he gave in too easily.   
  
Why isn't he a stronger person? Aren't you supposed to fight tooth and nail for the one you love? Why can't he bring himself to do that for Link? Why can't Link bring himself to do that for _him_? He reckons they're both equally at fault for the way their relationship has gone over the past thirty years, but Rhett can't help but blame himself just a little bit more. He's not sure why. Maybe because he's usually the brave one in their dynamic. The adventurous one, the one willing to take risks, to experience anything and everything. Link would follow him through the fire if Rhett took the first step, he knows this. He just can't get his foot off the ground. It makes him feel hypocritical. Like a coward. Fake.   
  
It disgusts him how easily he can fake things. Rhett is a very good liar, perfecting the art with years of practice. It shocks him sometimes how quickly it all rolls off his tongue. _I've never felt that way about Link. I have no regrets. I'm a healthy person. I'm a good husband and father. That bruise on my neck? Yeah, I've got no idea where that came from. Link left his shirt here because he spilled something on his and I gave him one of mine, no big deal, stop worrying so much._ Rhett wishes he could believe his own lies as much as everyone else does. The thing about lies, though, is that somehow, some way, you always get caught. The truth always comes out, and Rhett isn't prepared in any way for when that inevitably happens.   
  
One more cigarette for luck and Rhett sneaks back inside. The house is dark and empty and quiet. All he can hear is his own heartbeat and the hum of the air conditioning. He's not really sure what time it is. Four am is his best guess. Rhett wanders to the door that leads to his basement and steps quietly down the stairs.   
  
He goes straight to a closet that upon first glance is only full of winter clothes, but he pushes them all aside to reveal a locked safe. He punches in the pin. _1984_. The door opens and the first thing Rhett sees is a pile of important documents. These are the things that can't be replaced, like social security cards and birth certificates. He looks at the birth certificates of his sons, their old North Carolina address on the envelopes. He traces their names with his fingertip. He loves them. Loves them so dearly, more than he ever thought possible. He loves them, and that's why he has to do this. He loves them, and they're better off without him.   
  
At the back of the safe is a loaded pistol. Rhett's only ever shot the thing at the gun range, thankfully never having to use it in an emergency. He takes it out and feels the weight of it in his hand. The strange part is, he doesn't feel scared. He's not nervous to do what he's about to do. It's like returning to a familiar place, like going home. Like how his ashes will be scattered along the banks of the Cape Fear River. Natural.   
  
If there really is a hell, that's where Rhett will be going. At least Link will meet him there sooner or later. If there isn't anything after, so be it. He won't be conscious to know anyway. If he becomes a ghost, which is an idea he likes, he can watch over everyone. He can watch over Link, his parents, his children, Jessie. He can protect them without hurting them, and hurting them is the only thing he seems to be able to do in this world. It's time to go.   
  
Rhett doesn't want to let himself hesitate. He shuts his eyes, takes one last breath of air, puts the gun to his temple and squeezes the trigger. The sound is deafening. It echoes through the whole basement, but why is he hearing that? Why is he hearing anything when he should be dead? Does it take a minute for your soul to leave your body? Rhett hasn't got a clue. The longer he waits for oblivion, however, the sooner he realizes what just happened; he fired off a blank. There was no bullet.   
  
He's shaking with adrenaline now. It's a mixture of relief and shame and a little bit of anger. He can't believe he was about to off himself in his own home with his wife and children upstairs. They would have to come down and find him slaughtered and bloody and live with that for the rest of their lives. How selfish to do to them, Rhett thinks. For that second he's thankful that his plan had a hitch.   
  
Footsteps are running above him, getting closer and closer to the basement door until he sees Jessie running down the stairs panting, a look of panic on her face. "What was that?" she cries, looking around the basement for some sort of burglar or intruder that Rhett just fought off. She doesn't find one, and she stares Rhett in the eyes with baited breath. Rhett stares back at her, and he drops the gun to the cement floor with a _clang_.   
  
"You... you didn't... you... _what_?" Jessie stammers.   
  
"Dad!" his oldest son yells from the top of the stairs, standing in the doorway with his younger brother in tow. "Dad, what was that?"   
  
"Go back upstairs, everything is fine," Jessie says, turning to them and forcing a smile through the tears streaming down her face. Rhett's never seen a smile that looks like it hurts until now.   
  
"But what was that noise? Dad are you--?"   
  
"Upstairs, boys!" she practically shrieks. "Go back upstairs _now_! Let us take care of it!" Both boys start to cry, but slowly back away to their bedrooms.   
  
Jessie turns her attention back on Rhett. It feels like his throat is about to close up. He opens his mouth but no words come out. Man, when will he stop shaking?   
  
"Rhett," she says slowly. Her voice is cracking at every syllable. "Who did you intend to shoot with that gun?"   
  
Why does she have to make him say it? He doesn't want to hear it come out of his own mouth, but he owes her at least that much. "Me," he says, coming out in a sob.   
  
Before he knows it he's fallen to his knees and Jessie is there to wrap him in her arms. They're both sobbing, holding nothing back and gripping each other tight. Jessie is muttering things but Rhett can't understand anything through the cries. In lieu of anything else to say, he simply tells her he's sorry.   
  
"Sorry?" Jessie repeats. "Sorry? Rhett, you..." She folds in on herself as she weeps in his arms. "We n-need, we need to get you _help_ , Rhett. Why? Why would you try to leave us like that?"   
  
"I need help," Rhett agrees, vision blurred from his tears and throat hoarse from wailing.   
  
"What am I supposed to do? Call an ambulance? "   
  
"No Jess, no. Don't do that. They'll just keep me there for three fucking days and drug me up."   
  
"But what if that's what you need?" Jessie asks desperately. She tucks her hair back behind her ears and takes a few shaky deep breaths. "I don't know what-- I don't know how to-- Lord Rhett, will you just take my hand and come upstairs?" She outstretches her shaking hand, and Rhett takes it.   
  
He feels completely numb sitting on the couch holding the glass of water Jessie gave him. He hears her upstairs trying to console their crying children, crying because of him. He hears her explain to them that Daddy is a little sick. They don't even know the half of it. She tells them everything is okay and that Daddy is going to get help, and then he'll be better. Rhett isn't sure the kids believe her, because it takes a while to calm their terrified crying. When it does stop, Jessie comes back down and sits with him on the couch. She grabs one of his hands and holds it tight like a vise grip. "I-I need help handling this," she says, taking her phone out of her back pocket and dialing a number quickly with one hand. She holds it to her ear and after a few beats says, "Christy? No, I'm not okay. Something is wrong. You two need to come over here now, _please_."   
  
Rhett almost laughs, and Jessie looks at him quizzically.   
  
It always goes back to Link. It always does.


End file.
